Tim Rutten and the Cassandras of the press

By Mike on September 2, 2005 12:13 PM

In today’s LAT media reporter Tim Rutten has an amazing, must-read column about how the NO Times-Picayune, NPR and the New York Times all ran in-depth stories about how New Orleans and the Gulf Coast were sitting ducks waiting for their own inevitable version of the ‘big one.’ It examines each of the prophetic three reports and details the steps that were taken after they were made public; in short, NOTHING. Consider this excerpt from the NPR show between reporter Daniel Zwerdling and scientist Joe Suhayda, a researcher from Louisiana State University, as Suhayda uses a measuring rod to determine what level hurricane floodwaters might reach in the French Quarter with a levee breach:

Suhayda: It’s well above the second floor there and it’s just about to the rooftop.

Zwerdling: Do you expect this kind of hurricane and this kind of flooding to hit New Orleans in our lifetime?

Suhayda: Well, I would say the probability is yes…

Zwerdling: So, basically, the part of New Orleans that most Americans and most people around the world think of as New Orleans would disappear underwater.

Suhayda: It would. That’s right.

…or this, from the NYT:

“If a bad hurricane hit, experts say, the city could fill up like a cereal bowl, killing tens of thousands and laying waste to the city’s architectural heritage. If the Big One hit, New Orleans could disappear.”

The Times-Picayune was the biggest Cassandra; its five-part series “Washing Away” it said simply that it was “only a matter of time” before New Orleans was leveled by a monster hurricane, with dire consequences:

“Thousands will drown while trapped in homes or cars by rising waters. Others will be washed away or crushed by debris. Survivors will end up trapped on roofs, in buildings or on high ground surrounded by water, with no means of escape and little food or fresh water, perhaps for several days.”

That series was written in 2002. It’s 2005, and it’s become a reality. Rutten does a great job; it is a jaw-dropping piece, and worth the read.

A warning sent but left unheeded [LAT]